Man has only one mind, but he has two distinct phases or functions of the one mind. Each phase is characterized by its own phenomena, which is peculiar to itself. Each of these minds is capable of independent action as well as synchronous action. We call one the objective mind because it deals with external things and the other is the subjective mind. The subjective mind is amenable and controlled by suggestion of the objective or conscious mind. The objective mind takes cognizance of the objective world.

In this work Dr. Joseph Murphy expands on his theory that the latent powers inherent in our subconscious can improve our lives. Dr. Murphy provides specific steps to nourish your conscious mind with the tools and attitudes that will open up the infinite power of your subconscious mind. Whether you wish to conquer a bad habit, be more successful, obtain harmony in your family or achieve goals that have thus far been unattainable, you will be given guidelines to put you on the right path.

Joseph Murphy was born in Ireland, the son of a private boy's school headmaster and raised a Roman Catholic. He studied for the priesthood and joined the Jesuits. In his twenties, an experience with healing prayer led him to leave the Jesuits and move to the United States, where he became a pharmacist in New York (having a degree in chemistry by that time). Here he attended the Church of the Healing Christ (part of the Church of Divine Science), where Emmet Fox had become minister in 1931.

In the mid 1940s, he moved to Los Angeles, where he met Religious Science founder Ernest Holmes and was ordained into Religious Science by Holmes in 1946, thereafter teaching at the Institute of Religious Science. A meeting with Divine Science Association president Erwin Gregg led to him being reordained into Divine Science and he became the minister of the Los Angeles Divine Science Church in 1949, which he built into one of the largest New Thought congregations in the country. In the next decade, Murphy married, earned a PhD in psychology from the University of Southern California and started writing. After his first wife died in 1976, he remarried to a fellow Divine Science minister who was his longstanding secretary. He died in 1981.